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Antidepressants like Prozac treat mental health disorders, but new research suggests they could also protect against serious infections and life-threatening sepsis. The study follows recent findings that users of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac had less severe COVID-19 infections. Another study found that Prozac—also known as fluoxetine—was effective in protecting mice against sepsis. While our immune systems do their best to protect us against infections, sometimes they can overreact. An obvious solution would presumably be to suppress the inflammatory response, but doing so can actually make patients more vulnerable to infection. Instead, an ideal treatment would 1) proactively...

Changing the way antibiotics are given to adult patients with sepsis will save thousands of lives a year globally, according to research. A clinical trial and systematic review have shown that intravenously administering commonly used penicillin-like antibiotics via continuous infusion—instead of multiple short infusions—cures infections and saves lives. The clinical trial of more than 7,000 patients tested findings from laboratory studies to deliver the best drug concentration for the bacteria causing the infection. "We found by delivering these antibiotic doses as a continuous infusion we can maintain the concentration of the antibiotic in a patient's blood and tissue, and kill...

In emergency rooms and intensive care units across the country, clinicians make split-second decisions about which antibiotics to give a patient. A new study reveals that these decisions may have unintended consequences for patient outcomes. Beginning in 2015, a 15-month national shortage of a commonly prescribed antibiotic, piperacillin/tazobactam--known by the brand name Zosyn--provided a unique opportunity to compare rates of death in hospitalized patients with sepsis who were administered two different types of antibiotics—one that spares the gut microbiome and one that profoundly alters it. Piperacillin/tazobactam is a broad-spectrum antibiotic that is commonly administered for sepsis, a life-threatening complication from...

A Maryland mother who lost her son to sepsis is now fighting for increased protocols in hospitals, as the cruel disease continues to kill one American every 90 seconds. Lochlin DeSantis was just five years old in January 2020 when he came down with the flu. But what is usually a relatively harmless illness turned into a far more sinister disease. Within two days of the onset of his sore throat and fever, he became unable to walk - moving his legs were oddly agonizingly painful. Just a day later, Lochlin started losing consciousness - resulting in a frantic rush...

Krystal “Krissy” Anderson, a former Kansas City Chiefscheerleader, has died at age 40 after giving birth to a stillborn child. The cause was sepsis, according to a GoFundMe post for Anderson. Anderson, of Leawood, Kansas, died on March 20 “shortly after the birth of her daughter, Charlotte Willow Anderson, who was born at rest,” an obituary said.

I would like to know HOW an article of a journalist could write a report of 1,000 words, and never get to the question we all ask. DID THIS WOMAN GET THE VACCINE. It is the FIRST thing that comes to mind when we see these stories, and they keep avoiding the obvious.

Scientists have proven that a formulation they pioneered alleviates deadly sepsis. Promising results from an initial clinical trial show that sodium ascorbate—a pH-balanced formulation of vitamin C—is effective in treating sepsis. Yugeesh Lankadeva said sepsis is notoriously difficult to treat and is often deadly. "Sepsis accounts for 35–50 percent of all hospital deaths. It occurs when the immune system fails to fight off an underlying infection, causing life-threatening falls in blood pressure, multiple organ failure, and death," Lankadeva said. "In our trial, patients were given sodium ascorbate into their bloodstream, resulting in promising improvements to multiple organs." Rinaldo Bellomo, said...

Researchers from Johns Hopkins and the Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions looked at 15 diseases and concluded that 371,000 Americans died and 424,000 were permanently disabled as a result of misdiagnoses. About 795,000 Americans die or are permanently disabled every year due to misdiagnosed medical conditions. A new analysis led by experts at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore looks more closely at diagnostic error and its impact. "Prior work has generally focused on errors occurring in a specific clinical setting, such as primary care, the emergency department or hospital-based care," lead author Dr. David Newman-Toker, director of...

Scientists have just discovered that the drug dimethylfumarate can block blood clotting during infection, offering hope that it could be used to treat a number of conditions, such a life-threatening disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC), which can occur in serious infections with bacteria that lead to sepsis or in response to viral infections such as COVID-19. Dr. Tristram Ryan and Professor Luke O'Neill describe how dimethylfumarate and a related experimental drug called 4-OI can stop coagulation by decreasing production of a clotting factor called Tissue Factor. They have shown that the mechanism involves a block in proteins called interferons, which promote...

A single oral dose of the antibiotic azithromycin can reduce the risk of postpartum sepsis and death among women who deliver vaginally by one-third, according to a large multi-country clinical trial, called A-PLUS. Only 1.6% of women in the study who received azithromycin during labor developed sepsis or died within six weeks after delivery, compared to 2.4% of those who received placebo. Azithromycin did not reduce the risk of stillbirth, newborn sepsis or newborn death. Sepsis—a life-threatening complication of bacterial and other infections—is a leading cause of maternal and newborn deaths worldwide, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Azithromycin, an...

Sepsis, one of the most acute and serious disease complications in the intensive care unit, is caused by various infections and results in life-threatening organ dysfunction. The intestinal barrier plays a vital role in the process of sepsis, and its disruption exacerbates sepsis. A study has found that promoting autophagy, the process by which cells break down and destroy damaged or abnormal proteins, with rapamycin, an immunosuppressant, reduced intestinal epithelial cell death and restored intestinal barrier function during sepsis. The study also suggests that the interplay of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), a negative regulator of autophagy, and polo-like kinase...

The body's extreme response to infection, a condition called sepsis, kills 11 million people every year. This is because to survive a serious infection it is not enough to get rid of the infectious agent, which is currently done with relative effectiveness; it is also necessary to limit the damage these and the immune response cause to the organs. The solution could be a class of drugs commonly used to treat cancer: anthracyclines. In the past, the team demonstrated that these drugs prevent organ failure in mice with sepsis without affecting the infectious agent's burden. This discovery inspired a clinical...

Remarkable accuracy – a sepsis diagnosis tool combines genetic sequencing with analysis of patients' immune responses...The new technology correctly identified 99% of confirmed bacterial sepsis cases, 92% of confirmed viral sepsis cases, and predicted sepsis in 74% of clinically suspected but undiagnosed cases.

A Texas woman has revealed that she nearly died from sepsis after doctors in the abortion-ban state refused to remove an inviable child from her body. Amanda Zurawski, 35, was 18 weeks pregnant with her daughter when she noticed something was wrong - but she was forced to wait three days until she was 'sick enough' for medics to perform an emergency abortion. On August 23, she found out that she had an incompetent cervix - meaning that she had dilated too early and miscarriage was inevitable. Because of strict abortion laws in Texas following the overturn of Roe v...

Jim and his family still need our prayers.

Jim needs prayers.

"We are a separate 18th Marine Battalion of the 35th Brigade, appealing to the public for help, to influence the top leadership of the brigade for their criminal orders, sending us to attack with the enemy under their shelling. We are suffering heavy losses, over the past four days, according to our doctors, there were 80 people killed and wounded, and according to our data, there are much more killed and wounded, there are also missing and captured. Those who try to tell the truth are taken away in an unknown direction. During these 4 days of the offensive, we...

Sadie Kemp, 34, developed sepsis in December and has been in the hospital for months. The hardest part is being away from her sons, who are 17 and 2. This is her story, as told to Kelly Burch. Every day I count down to the evenings. That's when my doctors let me out of the hospital for a few hours so I can go to my parents' house and visit my sons, who are 17 and 2. I've been in the hospital since the day after Christmas, when I nearly died of sepsis. All of my fingers have been amputated,...

A study has identified a key regulatory mechanism in inflammation that may lead to new targets for resolving that inflammation—and the inflammation of patients with sepsis, cancer and COVID. The scientists discovered a pathway that regulates the immune response after infection or injury, such as burns. Dysregulation of this pathway could differentiate those who are at risk of fatal sepsis or help identify targets to resolve this unregulated inflammation. The team found that the metabolites of linoleic acid formed by the enzyme, soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), drive deleterious inflammation after injury. These metabolites, known as lipid mediators, regulate inflammation, blood...

A 19-year-old college student developed sepsis and lost his legs and fingers after eating leftover Chinese takeout food in what a doctor described as a “perfect storm” of events. Dr. Bernard Hsu, a licensed toxicologist, described how the young man became severely ill after eating tainted leftovers, including lo mein, chicken and rice. “This was a freak accident happening in a perfect storm sequence of events,” Hsu, who did not treat the man, in a YouTube video on Feb 16. The teen’s case was first reported in March 2021 in The New England Journal of Medicine, which detailed how he...